With over 16,000 sensors tied to automatic shut-offs, the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline (as in Xtra-Large) is not your father’s pipeline. However, it’s still a pipeline, and the long history of ruptures, leaks, spills and other “incidents” call attention to the problems that face all pipelines in America.

We just don’t maintain them like we should.

And it’s the same for all critical infrastructure. The corporations that build and operate this infrastructure talk about all the bells and whistles they have to make them safe, and promise to do so, but history says differently. Decades after these things are built, the industry just doesn’t care anymore.

It’s not that these pipelines and rigs can’t be run safely, it’s that they aren’t. Maybe the managers and operators who originally built them once cared, but after they’ve retired or died, the new managers don’t have the same ownership.

Just look at last weeks’ Exxon Pegasus pipeline spill in the middle of an Arkansas neighborhood. Almost a hundred thousand gallons of heavy crude poured down the street of homeowners who didn’t even know the pipeline was there. It was 65 years old. Everyone who worked on it is dead.

And this was the second U.S. spill in a week involving Canadian crude (Reuters).

At the time Pegasus was built, it was state-of-the-art. But like any system, it needs upkeep and maintenance. Why isn’t that happening? With any of our millions of miles of pipelines? And why does anyone think it will be different with Keystone XL?

Exxon installed what it called newleak detection technology in the Pegasus line in 2009.

How’d that work out?

It’s not like Keystone XL will leak in the first five years following its construction, but it will in the decades following that, for just the same reason.

ExxonMobil was fined nearly $2 million for a similar spill in 2011 in the Yellowstone River. And regulators are considering a similar fine for the Pegasus.

$2 million? Really? This is a punishment that fits this crime? Unless the fines erase the $50 billion in annual profits, and the $20 billion in annual tax breaks, these companies will continue to laugh off millions, and even billions, that don’t put a dent in the bottom line.

The Pegasus pipeline can carry 90,000 barrels of crude a day. Keystone XL will carry up to 700,000 barrels per day. Vehement cries to shut these down are met with equally vehement cries of the critical importance of this oil to our economy and energy security.

If this is so critical, you’d think the industry would care about maintaining it. The value from this pipeline alone should ensure inspection and care. I mean, at just under $100 per barrel, this is $3.2 billion a year flowing through Pegasus. In just one pipeline!

Keystone XL would carry over $25 billion per year. You’d think that would result in a little oversight.

Exxon was fined in 2010 for not inspecting the Pegasus. Obviously, they didn’t feel that million-dollar pain. And why would they, $2 million is less than the cost to inspect and maintain the lines - less than one days’ worth of oil flowing through it. So just wait until it breaks and then pay the fine. No biggie.

It won’t be any different with Keystone XL. Who’s going to inspect those 16,000 sensors? Is anything required to happen when they do go out? Is there a legally-binding maintenance agreement that carries hefty penalties if ignored? Is the fine high enough to make it happen? Will any signatories be alive when it does?

No. And that’s the problem.

Thousands of miles of pipelines run over the Ogallala aquifer, which cannot be replaced or cleaned-up. When that goes, we’ll have a bigger problem than energy security.

It’s not the oil business that’s bad, it’s the business-as-usual that’s bad.